


Watercolors

by TheGreatCatsby



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, mentions of Daichi - Freeform, oisuga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 19:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6920548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatCatsby/pseuds/TheGreatCatsby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happens when Suga is waiting for the train.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watercolors

**Author's Note:**

> This is from the soulmate prompt about how you see colors when you see your soulmate for the first time. I added a rule--it's not permanent until you touch your soulmate. Special thanks to kagarizard for suggesting it to me!

Suga is waiting for the train. 

Suga makes this journey daily, from his hometown to the Sendai city center, where he goes to school to learn how to take care of people, and back. It's late. This semester he has an evening class, and by the time he makes his way home the work rush has ended and there are few people on the train. He actually likes it this way. It's easy to get a seat and to get some work done on the journey home. 

Today he waits for the digital board to announce which track his train will depart from. He glances down at his phone screen and scrolls through messages, black characters stark against the white screen. It's not just the phone. Everything is black and white and the varying shades between. The only thing he knows is greyscale. 

The digital numbers on the board blink back at him when he looks up again, white. Ten minutes have passed. His eyes wander to the trains listed above. His is there, set for an on-time departure, but the platform hasn't been decided yet. 

It's usually three. Platform Three, but sometimes it's Eight or Eleven and that's a pain on the days where Suga is on autopilot from studying late and not getting much sleep and needing to work harder and harder to make sure that he's above average. It's completely unhelpful when he automatically goes for the third platform only to find that the train isn't there, and then he has to run across the station feeling bad that he can't even get the gate right. 

Tonight is a good night. He's had the presence of mind to get to the station early enough that he has to wait for the platform to be announced. He blinks, considers texting Daichi, who should be out of volleyball practice by now. But maybe he's on a date with Michimiya. Suga has forgotten what day of the week it is. 

The board in front of him flashes something strange. 

Suga blinks again and everything looks...not distorted, but different. His breath catches. The numbers on the board are duller than white, but still bright. The floor is off shade. The lights above look like the characters on the digital readout. His clothes look the same, button down shirt and pants, but his skin is a strange hue and the leather bracelet around his wrist is, too. 

Then he hears rapid footfalls and turns. 

A tall man with dark hair streaks past him for the gate. He pauses just before he reaches it, blinking, spins to glance around the station. 

An announcement comes over the station speakers. A last call for the train at Platform Nine. 

The young man turns and bursts through the gates, sprints to the train on the platform. A whistle sounds. 

Suga notices for the first time that all the markings on the train are different. They used to look like the same dark shade on the white body of the train, but now they are all so startingly contrasted that Suga wonders how they could have ever looked the same. He feels dizzy at how bright everything is, how saturated. He sways on the spot as the newly colorful train pulls out of the station. 

And with it, the colors are pulled away. Everything becomes less saturated, fading into something more familiar, and Suga feels like everything inside of him is leeching away. The station returns to stark greyscale and Suga finds himself on his knees. Someone's hand is on his shoulder asking him if he's okay. His head is pounding and he feels sick with how quick everything changed and changed back again. 

He glances up at the board for the location of the train that took his color away, but it's already been replaced by his own train, on Platform Three. 

He climbs to his feet and trudges to his train, white and black and grey with three markings on the side that look the same but shouldn't. He sits in a patterned seat by the window and wonders what this looks like when it's saturated. But the man who ran through the station and briefly splashed Suga's surroundings with color is on the other train. The young man who looked like he was Suga's age with a gym bag slung over his shoulder. 

His hair was brown. 

*

There are words for the different hues that populate the world, but not everyone can understand what these words mean. 

Until he was old enough to know, Suga assumed that once you reached a certain age you could see this added detail called color. Daichi's parents talked about color all the time, told Suga what everything should be. The bark of trees is brown, the leaves are green in the summer. The grass is green, too. Suga's hair is ash blond. Daichi's hair is black. The sky is blue but clouds are white and grey. 

Suga's parents got into an argument. They got into many arguments, but one was so loud that Suga could hear it even though he'd stuffed his head between two of his pillows. Suga's mother was upset because she couldn't see colors. For some reason, this impacted the relationship with Suga's father. 

Suga thought she might be sick at the time, and that his father could see color and maybe his mother was jealous. But as he grew older he learned that wasn't the case. He wondered if he was destined to be like his parents, to only ever see in greys and whites and blacks. 

Daichi's parents brought him colorful things, and his own parents only ever brought him things in greyscale (according to Daichi, whose mom had asked why Suga only ever wore such plain clothing.) This backpack is red, Daichi's mother would tell him, or this sweater is green, Daichi would proudly proclaim. 

When they graduated from high school and went to different universities, Daichi got Suga a leather bracelet. The thin strips of leather had been braided to make a lovely twisting design that stood out stark against Suga's light skin. 

“My mom helped me pick it out,” Daichi said. “She says the leather is strong, and I thought it was perfect. It's strong like you.” 

I'm not strong, Suga thought, but he wanted to cry because Daichi thought he was. 

“And,” Daichi added, “it's brown.” 

All Suga saw was a dark grey, but as with everything Daichi and his parents had given him, he remembered the word for the color, just in case. 

He would be happier that he did, but right now all he can think about is the way everything completely changed around him for a few seconds. He can only think about how perhaps his one chance at seeing color probably won't ever cross paths with him again. After all, they'd never crossed paths before. It makes him feel worse than it should. 

All Suga can think about is finding the man with the brown hair and taking his hand and not letting go.

* 

Suga continues going to class and coming back home with one change: no matter how early his classes end, he takes the later train home, gets to the station about half an hour ahead of time despite his train not even being announced yet, and stands in front of the station board, waiting. 

A week goes by and everything remains stubbornly the same except for Suga's level of patience. He even goes into his university on the weekend to do his work in the library there, just in case the brown haired man takes the train on the weekends and Suga misses his chance because he wasn't dedicated enough. 

It's hard to get home late, especially when he has to leave home early, but Suga finds his skin crawling at the thought of not being in the train station late, just in case. Just in case he misses his only chance. He can't. The brown haired man has to appear again. This can't be it. He can't have seen color once only to have it taken away forever. 

But even worse is that he knows what it means. The brief flash of color and the person who gave it to him, and Suga doesn't want school and studying and his job to be what his life amounts to. Daichi is great, but Daichi is a friend, like his other friends, and Suga wants his heart to feel overwhelmed with joy when he looks at someone. He wants to feel warm in someone's embrace, to feel at home in another person. 

He wants it even more than he wants the color. 

A week after the color incident Suga is staring at the board when the digital characters change. 

He spins around just in time to see the brown-haired man sprinting through the station, and every single thing changes around him. Suga rushes forward, doesn't hesitate, grabs his arm harm enough to cause him to whip around and Suga to nearly fall flat on his face. 

They both gasp, because as soon as their skin makes contact everything becomes more vivid than before and seems to lock into place. Suga knows, instinctively, that he's seeing everything more clearly, that it won't drain away the second this man leaves on his train. 

“It's you,” he gasps. 

The brown haired man stares down at him, eyes wide. “So you're the one. I didn't even see you last time.” 

“You ran right past me.” 

“My...train.” 

“Maybe you should get to the station earlier.” 

He glances at Suga's face, eyebrows raised, and then down at Suga's hand on his arm. Suga releases him. The man gives him a charming smile and Suga's heart flutters because he is really, really good looking. 

“What's your name?” Suga asks. 

“So forward,” the man murmurs. 

“I can't just call you color-chan,” Suga points out. 

“So uncreative!” The brown-haired man laughs, light and airy, but Suga can see that he's being analyzed, the brown haired man's brown eyes taking in every detail about Suga. Suga would rather save that for later, when he's used to everything looking so different. 

“Like you'd come up with better.” 

“I've been calling you Refreshing-kun,” the brown haired man says. “Because all those colors refreshed my world view.” His grin is smug. 

Suga sighs and sticks out his hand. “Sugawara Koushi. Your Color-chan.” 

“Oikawa Tooru.” Oikawa takes Suga's hand and holds it tight in his own, but not in the way Suga intended. Not in the way of a handshake, but in the way of one person grasping another's hand in order to ground them, or make a promise. “Your soulmate.” 

Suga laughs. It comes out nervous but he manages to sound teasing when he says, “Now that is forward.” 

“But I'm not wrong,” Oikawa says. 

“You're not,” Suga agrees. He meets Oikawa's intense stare. “But that's just a word, isn't it? I'm thankful for the colors, but I want to know if you can live up to what it really means.” 

“Do you think I can?” Oikawa asks, for the first time looking and sounding uncertain. 

“We just met.” 

“And that means?” 

Suga gives him a bright smile and squeezes his hand. “It means show me.”


End file.
